Okay...I'm going to reply to the story and to a few different
email comments here, so I'll just start from the bottom of the thread.
To start with, directly from the fic:
"Akane held a hand out with a pair of 5000 yen notes, frowning as
she reached for the tape."
I don't think it's likely that Akane would be carrying a hundred
dollars (greatly rounded) on her. MAYBE she'd have it stored in
her room somewhere, but she wouldn't have it on her, especially
when she wouldn't be carrying a purse at the time.
Agreed....
"But what really bugged her was that this was hitting her harder
than she expected. It?s not like she really cared for Ranma, was
it? Oh, who did she think she was fooling? Of course she did,
Nabiki realized. She had cared for Ranma for quite a while, even
if she wouldn?t admit it to herself. After all, who was it that
pulled her family?s fat out of the fire, time and time again?
Sure, sometimes it was his fault for actually putting it in the
fire to begin with, but she knew several times where he?d saved
them from their own stupidity."
This segment doesn't work very well. It would be far more
believable for Nabiki to have already realized her love for Ranma.
Trying to make out like she's just noticing it now calls more
attention to the transition from cold bitch to Ranma-loving-
junkie, which this fic does NOT need. Changing the story so that
Nabiki was just hiding her affections would help quite a bit,
because it's easier to get the reader to go along with a constant
characterization that is present from the beginning of the story
than try to carry out a transformation that the reader will be
forced to wade through. Justifications for why Nabiki is in love
with Ranma just weaken and slow the story down; there is no gain
to be made from such an approach in this story where shifting
characterizations will not get the extreme amount of focus that
will be required for a successful change.
Also agreed. Wow. Last time I responded to your C&C we started a flamewar.
"Tofu shook her head. ?You were young. It was a simple enough
mistake.?
?I shouldn?t have been doing that anyway. I am glad you?re finally
over it, though,? Kasumi said, ashamed."
I have to admit I was pleasently surprised by this. A nice
addition. The later revealing of this to Nabiki was going too
far, though.
Three in a row? Damn.
"Here we go, Nabiki thought to herself. ?Well, he can?t be a man,
considering he?s only 10 right now, can he??
Nodoka replied, ?Eleven. His birthday was a week and a half ago.?"
...I really don't understand this. How would Nodoka know how old
Ranma is? Ranma supposedly ate the 10cm mushroom. That makes him
ten years old, unless he ate the mushroom before his birthday,
which I doubt; the story arc was too short and didn't cover the
difficulties that would be present by such a prolonged period.
Besides, unless the mushroom were 10cm and some portion of
another, it would take a full year from when he ate the mushroom
for him to age to being eleven. So...this seems like nonsense.
I'm not sure how long he was stuck at that age in canon, but if it were before his birthday... well, it's his BIRTHDAY, and she's his MOTHER. Do you really expect her not to celebrate it anyway, even if physically he's only ten-and-a-little? He's chronologically SEVENTEEN!
Regarding the issue of whether the magical school would have
hunted down Ranma or either Tendou girl, here is the phrasing of
Hogwarts' letter, which seems automatic/standard:
"We await your owl by no later than 31 July."
I read this as "We await your acceptance or lack thereof," with
probably a spell put on the letter to ensure that it is not
destroyed. If the letter IS destroyed, more are sent, and if no
reply is recieved, a teacher is sent. This is supported by
Hagrid's statement of "I knew you weren't getting your letters"
when explaining things to Harry during the first book. You can
agree or disagree with how I read the way the book give the
situation, that's just my input. However, it should be noted that
this is for Hogwarts, not Golden Sora, and that none of the
characters recieved a letter from Hogwarts, so it is pointless to
consider whether or not the matter being dropped after only one
letter is canon; such a question does not apply here.
It's entirely possible that Golden Sora, being a Japanese institution, would have bowed to the will of the families rather than disturb the wa of the land in as great a manner as Hogwarts did when pursuing Harry.
It's also possible that Hogwarts' pursuit of Mr. Potter was, shall we say, rather more than the ordinary attempts to contact a prospective student....
"Dear Mrs. and Ms. Saotome,"
This is questionable; Ranma was turned into a girl only shortly
before the letter arrived, and his name was gotten from the list
of students, which had recorded Ranma's birth, so it should be
accurate. The letter would more likely be addressed to Mr.
Saotome, not Ms. It can probably be dismissed as "magic," but if
that's the case, I would expect that such sensitive magic would
recognize a curse and act appropriately...which in this case would
be to remain as Mr.. Also, the deliberate mentioning of Mrs.
Saotome implies that the situation with Genma is known by the
person who sent the letter, which also implies more knowledge of
Ranma's sitiuation, which causes the question of why Ranma was
left in that situation of he were being monitored that closely.
Combined with the prologue, which was very harsh to Genma, that
Ranma would be knowlingly left to such "torture" is hard to believe.
I think we may have to agree to disagree on this one.
"?I?m going to try to find those mushrooms, Ranma.?
The child shook her head. ?No, you can?t do that. You don?t want
to be a kid again just for me.?"
This is also questionable. If Nabiki finds the mushrooms, what is
to keep Ranma from simply using them to return to his normal age?
This isn't supported at all in the fic. The question isn't even
raised by any of the characters involved here, and it's not one
that could be missed; it would come up, and it would need to be
addressed.
Also, the general acceptance between Ranma and Nabiki of their new
potential relationship goes much too smoothly. I didn't believe
it at all; the emotions involved just didn't work out.
We agree here, though. It is a bit too quick.
"Amazon law does not allow the intermarriage between normal people
and wizards. There are so few wizards, the laws were meant to help
promote growth.?"
...I'm failing to see the logic behind this reasoning. There
isn't, as far as I know, a single case mentioned in the books
where a muggle and a wizard had children who weren't magical.
There is, however, the reverse; at least two cases, iirc about
Tonks's father being a muggle. Also, it is clear that muggles can
have magical children. So Cologne's statement would argue that
the children of wizards and muggles tend to be non-magical, which
just isn't supported. At the very least, Cologne has to state
directly that it IS the case, since there is not canon information
that anywhere near suggests such.
And how many wizards in the Hogwarts world actually believe and understand that? I'd say... somewhat less than half. There's still a fairly strong level of anti-muggle sentiment, and belief that "purebloods" are better than "halfbloods". Cologne's shown herself to be strongly prejudiced about things in the past, it's no surprise to find her reacting in such a way again here.
On a related note...there has been some argument over the
significance of the Potter family line and the manner in which
Draco addresses Harry. Sorry, folks, but Harry isn't a halfblood.
A halfblood has one magical parent and one muggle parent. Tom
Riddle is a halfblood. Harry is not, despite the rather
widespread fanon misconception that he is.
True. It's Hermione who's the halfblood.
"Ranma?s eyes widened, then he chuckled. ?Of course. I should have
figured. It?s sort of obvious looking at it now. Knowing so much
about magic and stuff.?"
This was lame. Sorry, but it was REALLY lame.
Yeah.
"?I?m not going to live too much longer. I don?t mean I?m going to
die in a day or two, but I mean that I?ve lived a long time and
doubt I?ll live too much longer."
Repetitive. Rephrase.
As for the whole Grandmaster Ranma bit...again, sorry, but that's
really lame. There is no reason or justification for such an
addition to the story. It just feels like an unneeded powerup.
It should be cut completely, because it doesn't belong in a fic
like this.
That all depends on what Ranma's destined role is, and why he's been handed over to Hogwarts so suddenly. Ask yourself why the premier /Japanese/ institute of magical education would suddenly turn over one of its prospective prize students to a gaijin school, with apparently little prompting? There's got to be more going on behind the scenes here.
<snippage>
Okay...final comments from previous emails:
On the issue of whether the background for the mushroom arc should
be covered in the fic: the answer is no. Add a link to one of the
sites with Ranma manga synopsi if necessary, but don't go further
than that. Honestly, the more pressing issue, since most of the
people who read this fic will have seen or read Ranma, is that
people might be unfamiliar with the HP books. I wouldn't
reccommend writing that backstory into the fic, either. -_-;
I think we're hitting a world record on lack of flamewar here.
Much discussion has been made about how the invitations to Golden
Sora would have been handled, but I haven't seen anybody ask why
Hogwarts never sent an invitation during Ranma's first youth.
That they didn't send a letter, and that they didn't follow up on
the situation despite the obvious amount of work they're putting
into Ranma's transfer NOW, seems odd. Why didn't they? This
needs to be addressed. Presumably the justification for Ranma
getting a letter now is upcoming, though I have no doubt that
Ranma should only have recieved a letter from his local school;
even Harry did, and Harry is so famous that it's actually hard to
believe he didn't get invitations from other places. So,
something else that will need to be extremely well-justified,
though unlike Nabiki's emotional changes, this isn't a situation
that can be avoided.
Hm. That's it, I think.
Yup. Again, I think the Hogwarts involvement is something relatively recent and inspired by something in Ranma's recent history... which we will hopefully see in later chapters.